Things We Don't Talk About
by Luenie
Summary: "... the entire pack was gathered in the Stilinski family home, all standing around the kitchen watching the candles melt and burn down on a cake that wouldn't be eaten. No one ever blew out the candles either; they always just let them melt down to nothing. Maybe it was because they just kept waiting for Stiles to walk through that front door and take his place at the table..."
1. The Missing

It was April eighth, today was Stiles Stilinski's nineteenth birthday. Just four years prior, and no one would have really paid much special attention to the day or the fact that is was someone's birthday. Four years prior the day was only noticed by the birthday boy himself, along with his Father and his best friend borderline brother. Four years ago was the last actual birthday that Stiles had celebrated, because it wasn't even a full year later that Stiles had vanished, a few months shy of his seventeenth birthday.

Ever since the overly sarcastic and fidgety teen had disappeared, the day had become a sort of event for many. A day to remember and mourn is nothing else. The pack refused to let the day go by ignored. They refused to ignore the loss and memory of one who was so dear to them, but was only so dear after he was gone and they had the time to realize just how much of a pillar he was in many of their lives. He had brought something to each and every one of them, a smile, a laugh, friendship, knowledge, kindness, and understanding. That was how they all viewed him now, fondly and without an ill feeling towards him as they once had.

Those who had once scowled at his presence now desperately craved it, they found that the silence was suffocating and no one knew quite how to fill it like Stiles had once been able to. They all felt guilty for what had happened. A bit guilty at how they treated him, ignored him, growled at him, screamed at him when he just wanted to help, and mostly they felt guilty for not being kinder to him when they had the chance, not letting him know what they really thought and felt of him. But it was too late for guilt, they knew that, but it still slept within them, baring its fangs whenever he was mentioned or something reminded them of him.

It had been three years ago, at the Beacon Hills High school lacrosse game. Stiles had been actually put in the game for the first time. His father had been on the stands screaming that that was his son! His son that was playing the field like never before, his son that had scored the winning goal. His son that had disappeared when the lights had gone out, his son that everyone forgot about in the midst of Jackson's mysterious injury and false death.

John Stilinski had stayed up all night and the next night not only searching for his son, but sending out amber alerts and missing person's reports and gathering search teams. Scott had tried finding Stiles by scent, but to no avail. Derek and Peter had even stepped in to help, Peter was the one to pinpoint Gerard and Stiles' scent on the field, and how it was intermingled. They would have spent more time trying to search out the scent, but things started to come to a head.

* * *

They faced Gerard down at a warehouse, after having taken Jackson from the hospital while he was still in his cocooned state. When the old man had showed Scott was the one to demand to know where Stiles was. Of course Gerard wasn't going to tell them that easily.

"What make you think I'm the one who took him? Maybe he simply got scared and ran away." Gerard had let out a dry laugh to the accusations.

"Don't play dumb! We know it was you who took him, your scent was mixed with his at the field." Surprisingly, this time it was Derek would spoke. Derek wasn't one many would pin for worrying about Stiles, or even being mildly interested in the boy. But this time Derek seemed to actually care about whatever had happened to Stiles.

"Pure coincidence, there were at least a hundred people there that night; I might have just simply stood where the boy once had." All those in the warehouse couldn't deny the logic, but they weren't so deterred, they all knew of Gerard's tricks and how easy it was for him to lie, even to a pack of wolves. "Besides, what would I want with a human boy when my plans were already well under way? The Stilinski boy is and was of no use or interest to me." Gerard's words once again wanted to make since in the wolves minds, but once again they refused to think he had nothing to do with this.

Before the questioning could go further the Kanima attacked, the battle that ensued led to Jackson's almost death, and Gerard's escape. And with Gerard, went every possible clue they had to finding Stiles.

Within the span of the next few weeks the pack spent time healing and getting things in order. Jackson stayed in Beacon Hills and joined the Hale pack as did Scott and Lydia. While Lydia was technically human, it wasn't unheard of or forbidden for her to be part of the pack. Sometime during the following weeks Erica and Boyd showed back up, bloodied and tired. They slept for what seemed like days before they finally spoke about what happened.

They recounted how they had been tricked by the hunters and taken captive after a rather nasty run in with Allison, who had almost managed to kill Boyd. They then told of how Chris Argent allowed them to escape and why they had waited a few weeks to come back. They had been worried they wouldn't be accepted back or even attacked by the pack for being runaways. After they had apologized profusely to Derek and had been reassured they were forgiven and back in the pack, that was when Erica brought up Stiles.

"Is Stiles okay?" She asked as she glanced up at the pack that surrounded her and Boyd, all of them gathered in the living room of Derek's new loft.

Everyone grew a bit more on edge and tense at the mention of Stiles, the room instantly filled with apprehension as if waiting for Erica to give them the world's secrets. Erica looked around at each of them for a moment wondering why they had all become so still before she shared a confused look with Boyd. Peter was the one to finally break the silence.

"Stiles has been missing for the past four weeks. No one has seen him since the last lacrosse game." Peter spoke as he crossed his arms and shifted his standing position.

"What? But Stiles was there, with us, we heard him." Erica spoke slowly.

"Why didn't you tell us that in the first place?!" Scott suddenly burst out. His fists were clenched at his sides and his jaw twitched. They had been right, Gerard had taken Stiles. He could still be at the house, locked away somewhere, forgotten and left behind, possibly dead by now.

"We thought that they had let him go. He was only there for about two days; we just figured they had released him since they can't exactly kill another human being, especially one that looks like an innocent kid. It's against their code, or something like that." Boyd spoke up looking rather sternly at Scott, not really liking the way Scott had blame woven in his tone.

"If you hadn't noticed Gerard didn't exactly follow the code." Scott snipped out.

Lydia decided to cut them short there, "just tell us everything you know about the time Stiles was there." She was far more interested in actually helping Stiles rather than standing around playing the blame game.

"They never brought Stiles into the basement, where we were being held. They kept him upstairs in one of the rooms just above us. The first night he was there we could hear him talking with Gerard, well more like flapping his gums until Gerard beat the shit out of him. It was pretty bad sounding…. Stiles was begging him to stop by the end of it." Erica looked just about anywhere except at the pack while she spoke. "On the second day he was talking with Gerard again, but it was hard to hear them though due to the electricity being pumped into us. But we managed to hear the end of the conversation. Gerard came to some sort of conclusion that Stiles was a…. Spark; yeah that was it, a spark. Gerard sounded weird when he was talking about it, like he should have known sooner, or like he was pleased to know."

Boyd continued from there. "After that Gerard and Stiles didn't speak anymore. Sometime in the night Stiles was taken away in some kind of vehicle. That was the last we heard of him, not even the hunters watching us said anything about it. Neither did Chris Argent when he came and let us out. So we figured if he didn't bring it up, then Stiles must have just been let go."

The room was quiet for a moment, everyone trying to work out the storm of new information in their minds.

"Spark… Deaton had said that Stiles had a spark in him, that's how he was able to lay out the mountain ash when we had the Kanima trapped in that club." Scott recalled, he was tapping his foot, trying to somehow connect things that simply didn't want to connect in his mind.

"Yes, but that doesn't help us understand what happened to Stiles. And there isn't enough information to figure out exactly why Gerard was so intrigued by the fact." Derek responded, his eyebrows were knitted together in thought and his arms crossed over his chest. He looked much the same as Scott did, frustrated at his own inability to figuree it all out.

"Honestly it's a wonder at even why that fact interested him. A Spark isn't all that uncommon, just about anyone can have a Spark. One just has to believe enough and it just… Well Sparks. It really isn't anything special at all, so it shouldn't be a wonder to Gerard whether Stiles had one or not." Peter added.

By the end of the little meeting no one was any closer to figuring anything out. Derek finally called it a day and sent everyone either home or just plain somewhere else. That night not many got to sleep soundly. All with heavy thoughts of Stiles on their minds.

* * *

Over the next couple of months things grew and changed and became a mess and then straightened out again. The Alpha pack rolled into town shortly after the school year started. After an entire summer or non-stop searching for Stiles, the pack was already exhausted. The entrance of the Alpha pack did nothing to help their situation. But somehow, by some miracle they all managed to make it out more or less alright.

The Alpha pack was reduced to mere ashes, Deucalion made off after having his eyesight return. Aiden and Ethan switched to the Hale pack, losing their Alpha rank in the process but not really bothered by it. Lydia turned out to be a Banshee, which no one was exactly clear on what it exactly was except that when she screamed everyone on the supernatural radar managed to hear it loud and clear. And then there was the fact that being a Banshee granted some kind of vague 'fortune telling' abilities as Scott referred to the gift. It wasn't official, but seeing as how Lydia had known about the Nematon before the end of it all, then they were just charting it up as visions of the future.

During all this time Danny had been slowly brought into the pack, learning about the supernatural when he'd accidentally walked in on Jackson half shifted. Danny had somewhat replaced Stiles as the friendly researching human of the pack. But it still wasn't the same.

By the end of the first year of Stiles' disappearance the pack was thirteen strong and things were slowly starting to get easier for them. For long periods of time they could go without something supernatural trying to kill them. As for the subject of Stiles, nothing ever got easier. Those who didn't know him personally didn't understand how he was important enough to matter so much to the pack. Why it all pained them so much just when someone mentioned the boy's name. Cora had brought it up at a pack meeting once at the pleading of the curious twins. But she had been brushed off rather harshly by Derek who had told her to "just drop it!"

Things didn't get easier as one year turned to two which quickly turned to three. Some of the pack members tried to move on while others never stopped looking. Scott spent most of his days and nights looking for just about anything along with Allison, who had been accepted into the pack after spending a year redeeming herself. Lydia didn't openly search for Stiles; she was mystified about the entire thing. Some days she would faintly wonder about what Stiles might have been doing at that very moment, while her nights were often times plagued by dreams of Stiles. Of finding him standing out in the middle of the woods, in her dreams she would always ask him the same thing.

"Is it raining?" She never knew why she would always ask this. She always wanted to ask different things, especially when she was aware she was dreaming. But every time she opened her mouth the same thing would fall out. Stiles would always reply to the question with the same answer.

"Yes." Even though in the dream the sky was perfectly clear, not a rain cloud in sight.

The dream puzzled her to no end. She told the pack about it once, Scott got hopeful that it meant something. But after a year of being hopeful about it he just stopped.

Meanwhile Derek would go out at nights with Stiles' father. He'd meet the man at the diner Stiles always liked, they would have dinner where no one would talk, and then they would split up and search the town for anything and everything. Derek and the Sheriff had been close since the kidnapping, and they had only gotten closer after John found out about the supernatural happenings and the real facts about Stiles' disappearance. No one but Peter and Cora knew that he went out every night and did this, or that he secretly looked out for the Sheriff in Stiles' absence. No one really needed to know anyway. It wasn't any of their business what he did or didn't do.

* * *

Now, all these years later, the entire pack was gathered in the Stilinski family home, all standing around the kitchen watching the candles melt and burn down on a cake that wouldn't be eaten. No one ever blew out the candles either; they always just let them melt down to nothing. Maybe it was because they just kept waiting for Stiles to walk through that front door and take his place at the table and blow them out himself.

It had been like that up until the year of Stiles' nineteenth birthday. This time Derek leaned over the table and blew the candles out.

* * *

**So thats the first chapter and phew that took a while to write. **

**A few things you might want to know or I have a feeling someone might get confused about. **

*** Stiles has been missing for three years (just in case my use of four years of birthdays and three years of missing confused anyone because I'm sure it will I know I'd be confused about that shit)**

*** Obviously I made a few cannon changes, Jackson stayed, Aiden and Ethan aren't alphas, yada yada, I also messed with the time line a little for the last of the second season. Since I needed Stiles' time in the Argent house to be a little bit longer then just a few hours. So yeup. **

**Thats really I can think of to clarify right now. But if you have any questions just message me so I can clear them up for you. **

**Also please tell me if I made any spelling/grammar/ect mistakes so I can fix them~!**

**I hope you all enjoyed~! **

**And please review! **

**Reviews are my fuel to keep going!**


	2. The Found

He couldn't really remember how he had ended up as he was. He couldn't really remember much of anything at all. His name… His name was gone. His age was gone. His entire life was gone. His mind ruined and in shambles. Fingers poking and cutting and adding and taking away until everything just seemed to have turned to putty. He does remember being afraid though. He remembers the first time they took him to the room with the machines and big overhead light. He'd been so scared that he'd cried, reduced to begging them to let him go. It was all for naught, though. Nothing he ever did would change anything…

But that wasn't exactly true anymore. No things had changed, when exactly they had done so he wasn't sure. All he knew is that there were no more white walls and long hallways. Now there was only cold, heavy rain and bare feet on asphalt.

* * *

Officer Nelson was new to the Beacon Hills police force. He'd specifically joined with Beacon Hills for the rumors of how active the town had been with murders and disappearances. Nelson had decided to be an Officer of the law purely for the thrill of the chase. He had dreamed of being like one of those TV detectives since he was a little boy. So when he joined the Beacon Hills force and all he found was a tired and sad town, he was a little let down. Upon his arrival he had been expecting a few unsolved murders or some sort of… Well just about anything to be going on. But it seemed to him that he had arrived just a little too late, and had missed out on all the action. Some would argue that was for the best, but to him it was the missed opportunity for a real case. Handing out tickets all day left much to be desired. So after several months of nothing since he joined, he wasn't expecting much when he was on his normal patrol of the outer roads about Beacon Hills on a rainy Monday night.

It was dark that night, usually the moonlight was just enough on the back roads, but with it blocked out by thick rain clouds, it seemed darker and much more ominous than usual. The bright lights of the cruiser lit up the road, windshield wipers cranked up to top speed to keep the flood like rain from obscuring the vision of the officer. It was still a hard to see, though, the officer was forced to slow his speed as he hit large puddles of water that had gathered in the middle and on the sides of the road. Per usual, the road was empty and deserted, the thick woods on either side of it not even offering a flash of reflective deer eyes, as they sometimes did.

Nelson yawned into his hand, closing his eyes for only a mere second. But a second was more than enough apparently. For when he opened them back up he had to slam on his breaks and jerk the wheel of the cruiser to keep from running straight into whatever exactly had jumped into the road. Once the cruiser finally came to a full stop Nelson looked in his rearview mirror, checking to see exactly what it was he had almost hit. He suspected it to be a deer or maybe even a large dog. He couldn't quiet see what it was due to the heavy rain pouring off the top of the car and over the windows. After a moment of resenting the rain he was soon to be soaked in, he grabbed his flashlight and stepped out of the vehicle.

The officer flashed the bright light over the road and stopped at what he'd almost run over. His brow furrowed upon finding nothing more than what seemed to be a young man standing in the middle of the road. He began to walk closer to the young man, who's back was turned to him, standing stark still.  
"Hey." Nelson called out, trying to get their attention. "What are you doing out here in th-" Nelson cut himself off as he got closer to the boy, now able to see him more properly.

The boy was completely soaked with the cold winter rain. He wore what seemed to be white cotton pants and a matching shirt. But the white was now stained with dirt and was torn in several places, a bit of blood mixed in with the dirt from scrapes and cuts along the boys arms and neck. One thing that stuck out most to Nelson where the boy's feet, they were completely bare, and he was certain that if he looked at the soles of the boy's feet they would be completely shredded and torn, like he had been walking on sharp gravel for days on end. As Nelson stepped even closer to the boy, only a few steps from being able to reach out and touch him, he noticed something worrisome. There was a long, thick scar across the back of the boy's head, easily visible due to the roughly shaved hair cut he had. As if someone had tried to give him a hurried buzz cut, like doctors would when about to perform surgery. It was then that Nelson concluded that he must have some sort of escaped hospital patient on his hands. He just prayed the kid was just confused, and not completely crazy.

"I think it's time you got back to where you're supposed to be, how about you come with me?" The officer asked as he extended a hand to grab the youth by the shoulder in order to turn him around. But just before he was able to touch him, the boy started walking forward. It wasn't a hurried walk as if he was trying to get away. It was a slow walk, staggering and numb looking.

Nelson wasn't very sure what he should do now, not wanting to upset the boy, who he finally decided was probably a mental patient. Nelson hurried back to his cruiser and grabbed his radio. The Sheriff would know what to do.

* * *

Within the months following Stiles' nineteenth birthday, all searches for Stiles had been officially called off and a certificate of death had been issued. A memorial was held a week after the announcement of Stiles' case being closed. Half the town had shown up to watch a coffin, filled with flowers and mementos from loved ones and friends, be lowered into the ground right next to where Claudia Stilinski laid. Stiles' head stone was simple, it had his name and his date of birth, but was absent of his death date.

A few people said a few things after the priest was done with his sermon about saying goodbye for good. The Sheriff was the last to speak. What he said was short and quiet, but it spoke volumes.

"This is for you, to give you all closer. But it is not for me, I will never have closer."

After that everyone stopped searching for Stiles. Scott was reluctant at first and found himself awake at night his legs twitching with want to go out and search. The Sheriff still searched, he would always be searching, even on his death bed he'd be searching for his son. The pack for the most part was on the road to moving on, it was slow goings, but it was easier with each other to help them through it.

Derek tried to stop looking, tried to heal and forget. But it wasn't possible, all this time he had been so conflicted whenever he thought about Stiles. Before Stiles had gone missing he had felt… Something for him, it wasn't strong and he wasn't sure if it had been friendship or something else. But after Stiles being absent from his life for so long, and feeling the empty space left behind by him. Derek slowly began to realize how much he had depended on Stiles to be there. Derek was always so afraid of losing people, but Stiles always seemed invincible to him. Sure Stiles had his fair share of bruises and even broken bones, but he never faced something fatal. He would always say something witty and sarcastic or flash one of his irritatingly stupid grins and brush off whatever near death experience he had faced. Stiles had become a sort of stable being in Derek's life, even in the short two years they had known each other. Stiles was a constant, and Derek had never imagined him leaving, so when he did leave, it was hard to register and once registered it was still hard to believe. Maybe that was why Derek looked so hard for Stiles. He just needed proof, of his death, or of something. He needed true closer, like the Sheriff did. He would never have closer even if he went on pretending to forget about it all.

* * *

Even though the searching stopped, Derek didn't stop having dinner with the Sheriff every night at Stiles' favorite diner. They wouldn't talk unless John started a conversation about Stiles, which wasn't very often at all. Like all those other silent nights, tonight was much the same. Derek sat in the booth at the back of the diner, across from John. He kept getting lost staring out at the rain hitting the window neglecting to eat much of his food. He couldn't deny that something felt odd, like a rising anticipation in his gut. As if he was waiting for some grand surprise. He'd always get this feeling whenever it rained, due to Lydia's dreams about Stiles. In the dream Stiles would say it was raining when asked, even when it wasn't. Derek had a small hope that it meant Stiles would be found on a rainy day in the future, hopefully alive.

"You remind me of Stiles when you do that," John's voice snapped Derek out of his little daze, looking to watch the man as he spoke. "When he was little he'd always demand we sit at a window seat whenever we went out to eat. He would always sit there and gaze out the window and watch everything like a hawk. I asked him once why he was always looking out of the window so hard and he'd always say that he just wanted to know what was going on outside. He was so curious all the time…" John finished, looking more tired than ever, a mere husk of a man.

Derek didn't say anything in response; he didn't really know what to say. He looked back out the window at the rain, trying to imagine a much smaller Stiles looking out the same window as a child. It was hard to imagine since he'd never seen a picture of Stiles as a kid, he could only imagine him as he was all those years ago. Bright eyed, jittery, blabber mouthed, seventeen year old, he couldn't imagine him silent and still.

Before Derek could think too hard on the thoughts in his mind, he heard the Sheriff's phone ring, watching as the man answered in a tired tone, his enhanced hearing allowing him to clearly hear the person on the other end of the line.

"Nelson's out on route 9 says he found some kid walking down the middle of the road not wearing any shoes, looking like some sort of mental patient. You said to call about any suspicious persons, so here's one for you, making his way at about two miles an hour." A woman's voice came through the other end.

"Alright, I'll head there now, thanks Deb." John replied before hanging up the phone, finishing up his coffee before standing up and looking down at Derek. "You want to come check it out with me?"

Derek nodded as he stood, paying his part of the bill before following the Sheriff out, each going to their respective vehicles. Derek followed the police cruiser all the way to the other side of town and onto one of the more isolated roads, after a few moments of driving the Sheriff came to a stop beside a cruiser parked on the side of the road.

"He's over there." The man, presumably Nelson, said as he pointed further on down the road with his flash light. The light just barely caught the figure that was slowly moving further and further down the road.

The Sheriff simply nodded and got out of his car, turning on his own flashlight as Derek also got out and followed John. As they approached the boy Derek inhaled deeply, then again.

"What is it?" John asked as he noticed Derek's insistent sniffing.

"I'm not sure… I can't tell with all this rain but… Something doesn't seem right…" He answered allowing his claws to elongate just a bit.

John nodded as his hand went to the gun on his hip, not drawing it, but more than prepared to. Once they were finally close enough to the boy to catch a good look at exactly what Nelson had earlier their nervousness only got worse.

"Son, how about you stop and turn around, slowly." The Sheriff said, his heart beat steady as a drum.

The boy did indeed stop, but he didn't turn around at first. He simply stood incredibly still; Derek inhaled once again to see if he was now close enough to catch a proper scent with the rains interference. He knew that scent.

"John," Derek reached out and grabbed the Sheriff's shoulder, but just as he did the young man finally turned around.

The metallic clang of the flash light hitting the road was the only sound in the sudden silence.

* * *

**I'm sorry for the cliffhanger shit.**

**I'm a horrible person and I love it.**

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed~!**

**I hope you liked this chapter just as much as the first~**


End file.
